


Endymion

by voids



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure/Horror, Eventual teratophilia, F/M, Human Ornstein, Set during the events of the first game, Slow Burn, Undead Ornstein
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-08-02 00:49:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voids/pseuds/voids
Summary: Ornstein wakes up in a strange place, suffering from amnesia with no clues about his most recent past. Grievous as it is, otherwise it would give him an explanation about why he has the body of an... undead, now.





	1. Amnesia

**Author's Note:**

> Human/Undead Ornstein is a good AU, so here I am, indulging myself in it :'3
> 
> Say hello to my dearest OC who will eventually have her deserved appearance.

                                                 

 

The first thing he heard was the chirping of birds. He didn’t recognize where they came from, but it was enough information for him to suspect that he was outside. A breeze followed suit, cooling his right ear. His left one was firmly trapped against something cold and ticklish, but soft.

He was able to move a pair of fingers. Strange. Something tangled around them, slim as a thread. It was unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.

If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that an arm was missing. Someone must have dismembered him while he was… flying about, across the void. Dark and thrilling, with those empty eyes following him. Those gooey yellow eyes, crying blood out of their corneas and chasing his limbs with their long arms... He thought of the Moon, how it used to follow him around when he… when he… was —

Where was he? Who… was… the voice. Was it still angry at him? He couldn’t tell how far had it been since he had last seen its blurry visage, but his chest tightened when he collected the thought. Well, if he wasn’t dead, he couldn’t say the same for it.

But he never died. Or did he? If the voice had been there when the eyes were chasing him, where was it now? Now that he was… somewhere.

He was alive. He was, really.

He breathed in a heady sigh, and began to choke on his own spit. His body convulsed and vomited out the remnants in his stomach, nothing but bile coming out. His mouth tasted like metal and death. His nose collecting the stench of something rotten, like another debased corpse left running under the sun.

The next thing he felt was a shift - a change of position; a pressure against his chest, and then warm air being forced into his mouth.

_“Get it out.”_

It was back, now, the voice. Except that it didn’t sound so grim. One of his eyes were open, but it stung him. Someone had burnt his eyeballs out of his sockets, just like that, and now whomever was in charge of his… whatever … was feeding off him, his guts, his…

So strange, this feeling. This unwarranted despoil.

There was more air suddenly being blown into his throat, deep down… and then, it was gone.

Sitting up sharply, he coughed out liquid, forming an endless puddle of —

_“That’s it, out with it.”_

He wished he could still see something, but he couldn’t spot the yellow eyes anymore, nor the shadowed visage of the talking voice. Nor the long limbs wanting to rip his arms off. He could hear, but not see. He wondered if his mother had birthed him blind. If there was no chance for him to recover his sight, if he…

Had been dreaming of nightmares all along…?  
  
_“Can you see?”_ Asked the voice.

He froze in his awkward position whilst his lungs struggled for air. He attempted an answer from his soiled mouth.

“No…”

 _“But you can speak, young man, and you understood me. So you’re not hollow. Not Yet._ _Huh?”_

H-hollow…

The word sounded far from unfamiliar, yet he couldn’t place a finger upon the mystery behind the name. Hollow. Or was the voice simply mocking him?

“My arm…” He gasped, for he was certain the bastard had ripped it off while he was unconscious. “Where is it?”

A pause, and then, a chuckle. _“Oh dear, you’ve got both arms intact. You may be feeling very_ _numb still.”_

He couldn’t be so sure whether the voice was being honest or was viciously lying to him, but before he could make up his mind about a fair retaliation, a second voice joined his blackened field of vision. It sounded muffled and barely audible, but he could distinguish a rougher tone and a whit of hesitation.

 _"What’s wrong, Venus?”_ Asked the new voice.

 _“Just an ungrateful son of a bitch. I saved this one from drowning, and still no thanks coming_ _  
_ _from his disgusting mouth.”_

He bared his teeth, making an awkward attempt to get up on his feet, until the aching pressure in his skull forced him to back onto the cold, hard ground. However, he was finally able to distinguish the soft, light tendrils tangling around his fingers. He must have been laying on grass. Even though it didn’t feel unpleasant, the unfamiliarity set off alarm bells in his head.

He wanted to ask the voices many questions: Who were they. What had happened, and why?

But the one question that at the forefront of his mind was the most frightening of all.

“Who am… I”

He spoke aloud, and immediately wished he hadn’t. His only certainty was that he had a consciousness, finally. And a body, as well as a mind. But if one of the voices’ name was Venus… did that mean that he had a name, too? And was he one of… them ?

“What are you?”  
  
The voices seemed to remain silent, which fuelled the terror in his core. He wanted to reach out with his hand and touch them, proving they were solid. His throat burned now, but not from the clenching of his muscles. His chest stung with pain, with the inside of his eyes tightening with an unfamiliar burst.

The division of each anguish binding together to set a force into motion; one that threatened his luck to be saved from drowning once again...

Then, the voices began talking in a foreign language. He screamed.

He scraped his fingernails against the fresh grass under his skin with enough strength to peel through to touch the soil beneath. All the while, a stale cold hand muffled his cries and heart pounding, trembling yells of terror. Another hand, with the same chilled bite, held his arms fast to restrain him from convulsing further. It was as if he were a stray animal, cornered and trapped to be tamed. The voices spoke again in that mysterious tongue of theirs. He was certain that his time had finally come. Now, they would end his life, just as they had saved it.

When more hands came to still him on the ground, he regretted not being able to see his surroundings. Someone had tied up his wrists, ankles, and his mouth was firmly muffled by a frayed piece of fabric. The soft and reassuring grass beneath his body was within reach no longer. He was being lifted up and carried towards an unknown destination, the strange voices communicating in a carefully measured tone concealing the mollified emotions beneath. He detected: triumph, apprehension, frustration and shock.

Suddenly, one of the two spoke in his native tongue; he made out four words before they alternated back. Without time to process, he was even more disorientated than before.

_“He’s one of them.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proof read by ShinigamiB. Thank you!


	2. A warm hospitality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: gross

As the path progressed and his sight failed to get any better, he considered suicide as the safest escape from the hellhole that was about to come. He was featherweight as they carried him, more so than a dead sparrow being taken to a burial place, but even a dead bird would have been maneuvered with more delicacy than the particular careless way those stiff hands handled him.

Something rough —a shoulder— was pressing against his ribs, filling his ears with horrifying bone- cracking sounds. His legs swung side to side; his hands clung to the sharpened edges of the metallic attire the individual in question was wearing. They stumbled a little awkwardly, nearly throwing him to the ground with a rattle. He whined and attempted to rid himself of the arms around him; unlucky for him, his strength seemed not to match his opponent’s, holding him still; yet he battled like a lion, kicking his legs and landing dry blows onto his captor.

 _“Keep quiet._ ” Said an annoyed voice. It must’ve been the captor. _“Don’t waste your energy.”_

He growled defiantly despite not knowing who the hell he was and where he came from, yet he now knew he was a fighter. His consciousness was clear now, and so was his petulance.

“Go fuck yourself.” He spat, because he could.

The captor stopped, seemingly offended by his insult. _“Have the bollocks to say that again and you’re getting them cut.”_

A pause, a whiff of air. The promise of rebellion. And then, “Go fuck yourself with a demon.”

The triumph branded on his façade would have been distressful to anyone with fair common sense, anyone but himself. He felt his fatiguing bones being lifted from the comfortless shoulder; now, if only his eyes could see, and so to be able to gaze at his opponent’s face and do something bloody worthy with it, but a hand closed around his throat with enough force to block his airway and deny him oxygen. His feet dangled in empty air. He tried to pry open the fingers suffocating him, but all he managed was to apply them extra pressure. If death was his escape, asphyxiation was the least attractive choice for a mortal, he found.

Yet he didn’t die, even though it felt like he was, indeed, dying.

 _“Calm down, Thomas”_ , said a voice. It was that woman’s, Venus.

_“Ngg, you’ve got a good pair of nuts, haven’t you? Too bad if I was about to rip them off. Whatever, they serve you no purpose. The dogs will be more than glad to consume them.”_

He granted him a grimace, mixed with the evidence of lacking fresh air in his lungs and the

satisfaction his opponent’s anger caused him.

_“Thomas.”_

He heard feet walking on grass, coming closer to the troubling scene. Thomas’ fingers loosened slightly, and in relief, he breathed, a thin thread of air, the first of many that would come in greater unison.

He fell on to the ground, weightless, like a sack of bones.

 _“Enough of this nonsense.”_ She sounded tired. Must’ve not been the first time she was dealing with his attitude. Ah, the irony. She was no saint either.

 _“It’s not like we really need him.”_ The condescending tone was a fair contrast, indeed.

 _“We do.”_ She concluded.

At first, he wondered what she meant, but his questioning lasted so briefly that it turned out tiresome finding more room for extra fucks to give, basically. He considered the chirping of the sparrows fair more entertaining to listen to than their immeasurable constant sputter, arguing, and gratuitous offensive language. His own health was at risk here, and as enticing as it was to put an end to his wretchedness, there were far more significant concerns to focus upon than losing his valuable time with a troop of creeps.

He decided letting them do their job, whatever the hell that was. He would find a way out of there, eventually. His instinct… something … assured him of a wild spirit trapped in his confinements, prowling like a cat looking for its best chance to strike. Surely, without eyes that see, this invisible world would become a constant puzzle to solve, but in return, enhanced hearing and smell would make up for his impairment, hopefully. Despite so, the thing that kept his growing anxiety untouchable was the thrilling confirmation that there was more to him than it seemed, whispers that spoke about unsophistication, almost as... if he grazed at the edge of a highest social status, as if, for one second, these… people … were common folk who should really be deserving those insults and life-threatening actions, not necessarily as a reprisal, but because the world said so. Period.

And as long as the dogma was in his favor, he should simply allow nature to follow its course.

His muscles relaxed on the rough shoulder of his captor. “Not for long a captor shall be” , a little voice in his head reminded him. The outcome must’ve been a gleeful grimace on his countenance, which was fairly risky as someone warned that guy, Thomas, that the “shitty bastard” was mocking him behind his back. He’d be lying to himself if he guaranteed that no further damage would be taken before they could finally reach their destination.

 

He entered, with a bleeding nose and a pair of broken ribs, a closed place that smelled of musty wood and rottenness: it had to be corpses by the horrid stench that filled the whereabouts and the loud buzzing of a thousand flies swarming around. That must’ve been laying there for… about a week, he calculated? Definitely long before he had woken up without a hint of information about his origins, but it was more than enough to stir someone’s stomach and take away the hunger of the the most starved. He entertained how probable it was that he would end up as a feast for insects. With that thought, he had to quickly cover his mouth with one hand and swallow the retching noises back in, but he was glad that he wasn’t being the only one clearly stricken by the reek. His captors were, indeed, showing as much repulsion as him. Someone even threw up soundly, and warranted a scolding from an angry companion and a loud slap on the face; pretty humiliating on their part, but they had brought this chaos upon themselves, hadn’t they? So it was only fair that the consequences paid them as they should.

The Thomas guy threw him against something hard, enough to leave bruises on his skull and worsen the state of his ribs. He was briefly freed of restraints, meaning that he could use his pair of legs to run if he dared, but at what cost? He would end up captured anew and surely with new broken and battered body parts. He hoped to keep as many limbs intact as possible.

 _“Stay still, boy.”_ A composed voice nearby said, assuming those words were aimed at him, but once metal-clad fingers closed around his wrists, he almost forced a laugh out of his bloody mouth. Because, of course, who else was that supposed to be addressed to? Nevertheless, any obvious facial trace of derogation was misplaced with genuine fear when his feet began floating at “ground” level, his toes curling inside the thick footwear he wore. The room became so quiet then, that only the sound of bones breaking was clearly heard, obviously his mauled ribs and now his clavicle. The cold fingers were soon replaced with a type of iron ring, closing fully around both of his wrists and leaving him hanging uncomfortably, like a ragdoll. The folk spoke between their kind in that secret language while his brain forced itself to wake up and think. Think of something, god damnit! But it didn’t matter how much he struggled to break free of the bindings, they wouldn’t just give in to his desire. Only way out had to lie in the hands of those who had chained him in that position, and he was certain that there had to be a key involved, as well.

Just when he couldn’t put an end to the frantic convulsions of his body following reparative beatings for the trouble he had inflicted —as if the subject’s choleric temperament had been his fault—, a new pair of hands cupped his chin, cold as the rest, but at least, these were careful as they proceeded. They seemed to be inspecting the wounds in his face with great attention.

 _“You look like shit. You better be glad that you’re fucking blind._ ” They assured apathetically; ah, that woman’s voice again. His lips curled up in a thin grin as mischief fluttered in his imagination. He set out to suck a good amount of coagulated blood and saliva into his mouth and retained it in the back of his tongue, forming a ball of spit. His intentions would put him at a higher risk, but it should teach them a lesson, as well.

A metal-clad finger came to rest against his lips, shushing him. _“Don’t. You. Dare. Or it will get much worse for you.”_ Venus threatened. Later on, after musing on the unfairness for him to be mangled like a damn puppet by those foreign hands, incapable of defending himself, he took a brief moment to inspect her voice, studying the way they talked and acted around each other. She seemed far more collected than the others, that was certain. But that didn’t make her any less nasty as her “friends”. While others implemented physical abuse to their victims, she was more of the kind that preferred the power of cruel wording. Not that it was having an impact on his mental wellness. Of course it wasn’t.

The woman poked between his lips with a cool object; he denied allowance with violent headshakes.

 _“Now… drink this up.”_ She muttered, trying to force the content into his mouth. _“Drink it, I say. I’m not poisoning you.”_

 _“Venus, he’s not going to make it, anyway.”_ Someone hinted with perplexity.

_“Well, I know pity. This poor bastard’s had enough.”_

She grabbed his jaw firmly with one hand and obliged him to give in, parting his lips and getting a taste of the first drops of a warm, strange liquid. _“Drink it up.”_

 _“We should, huh, leave before night. Best if we do.”_ Another one anticipated.

There was nothing he could do but follow her orders; and so he swallowed the content of the glass vial, doing his best not to choke. Even when his tongue felt oddly peppered and the burning wave ignited his organs. The woman cursed aloud, before a noise of breaking glass filled his ears, suggesting the jar had slipped from her grasp and had broken to pieces.

_“What the —”_

Eventually, the invisible world, the talking darkness that had surrounded him since he had awaken, wet and miserable a while ago, began scattering like mist, giving way to blurred shapes and distorted realities. It was this moment when he knew that, yes, he should have been glad that he was… had been born fucking blind. That the fear he had experienced only an instant ago, when they had hung him up like some sort of ornament, had nothing to do with the terror his brain was struggling to assimilate.

He saw the nightmare; a skull inspecting him with deep, empty eyes. Death itself.

 

Then, the world faded to blackness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proof read by ShinigamiB. Thank you!


	3. The warehouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes real.

The more he stopped to think about it, he was certain how the weight of the foregoing events hunched on the promise of trauma; trapped in the neverending twirl of a tornado, he found no clues regarding his real name yet, nor the life he used to carry before the confusion and pain washed over him. But there was still that faint flick of oddity in the vulnerability within him; a silent longing for a dear “friend” that should resolve all trouble, had it been there. Whether said friend was material or spiritual, such inquiry remained an enigma.

As of now, he found himself diving into a sea of despair in an attempt to escape those empty eye holes. Like the spreading incineration within him, were being engraved into his memory. Unable to forge his path further away, he was surprised by a crowd of limbs limiting further tricks of his subconscious, which were not much beside a world of living horrors standing over the line between reality and fiction, even if he himself couldn’t tell what was real anymore.

He decided not to linger on such concerns, as his higher disturbance came upon the gruesome image of Death, mere inches away from him, quietly urging its tropes of cadaverous limbs to chain him up before its lifeless eyes. His mouth went dry after he spotted a faint yellow flicker deep into its dark orbs, just like in his nightmares, and he let out a quivering plea of mercy since he knew what was supposed to come next; in his dreams, the monsters wept blood out of their corneas, so if Death proceeded to lull its lament for him with a string of crimson tears, it might definitely signal an omen.

It didn’t matter how much his blood was burning inside, the unerring augury froze it back.

All he did was wait under the skull’s emotionless glare. And he waited, attentive to any change of state within the skull’s pale façade. Yet not a single tear was shed from its eyes. Instead, they studied him like they were determining the true worth of his soul. When it spoke, its voice sounded not like he had imagined, but its words knocked him out:

_"Dragon slayer.”_

“Who?”

_“My, you’re as amnesic as I thought. Such an outrage. You shan’t get too far like that. ”_

He was dumbfounded, speechless; and as swiftly as it had come, his dread was gone.

“Who are you talking to ?”

The skull remained silent for a moment, testing his patience. He was experiencing something akin to the excitement one goes through just before solving a life-crushing riddle.

_“Not to you, most certainly.”_

He grinded and clenched his teeth, briefly forgetting about the dismal surroundings and how badly his organs scorched . There was some bizarre gap in the reason that tiny ounce of pride left in him grew anew when the skull mocked him despicably. The being before him could’ve been of great power and thundering respect, but to him it meant absolutely nothing if it gave itself the pleasure to shower him with needless pleasantries. His patience was wearing thin.

“I’m in no mood for jesting.” He snarled.

 _“Even struck as you are, you haven’t lost your, ahem, peculiar temper.”_ Death emphasized.  _“I wonder if there’s still an ounce of lightning in you.”_

It reached out to touch him, down his shoulders, over his left pectoral. He hissed and repelled the hand away.

“Don’t lay a finger on me, you filthy sack of bones!”

The being tilted its head to one side.

 _“My, my, suddenly lacking respect, aren’t we.”_ It chuckled, though lacking amusement. _“A well-bred one no longer you are.”_

The grip around his wrists and ankles by the corpse-like limbs tightened and obstructed his blood conduits, blocking the burning stream that obliged access into his fingers. His eyes clenched as the need to bite his tongue as coping mechanism for the horrid pain took over. Worse than the feel of having a hellfire inside was one of having your hands and feet singed off your limbs, because that was the foreign yet accurate description for such an excruciation.

He begged, as loud as possible, for a fair end to his horrors. He wanted to wake up. Death ordered its troop to loosen their grasp, and when they did, he almost —almost— groaned in relief.

 _“As tempting as it is, I don’t take the souls of those who offer them so gratuitously to me.”_  Death declared in a more severe tone. _“Plus you’ve come here with a purpose.”_

_“Tis a shame, however, since your old spirit is broken and decayed, but not dead… yet. Could there still exist some form of repairment, I wonder?”_

Had it expected to reduce his anxiety levels upon hearing this one last baffling observation, it didn’t do nothing to diminish the priority to glue the scattered pieces of his memory back together and figure the hell out about everything; for worse, it startled him anew. Albeit of the being’s true intentions behind its words, he wondered whether it was trying to tell him the truth, or it was spreading nothing but made up, hurtful lies.

“Tell me who I am.” He urged, furrowing with determination.

Death approached, slowly yet dangerously, towering over him as it did. A sour smell, reminiscent of ancient power, filtered through his nostrils. With that, dread came back to him, and he suppressed a flicker of muscle.

_“You shall find your answers within you. Your purpose shall be sought up above, once the night sky dyes our world with dark and the eye of the snake grants us a midnight of peace.”_

“I doubt my memory will even remember the order with which you said th—”

 _“As of now,”_ Death cut him mid sentence, _“words don’t have much value here. Seek the old lady near the river. She will grant you with a little secret.”_

When it ceased its speech, the jaw of the skull dislodged like a python about to devour a huge prey. He quietly watched it perform a detritivores act upon him, this time, it was the dead feeding on the. Cool sweat slipped down his brow, not for that fact that he was literally being thrown into the maw of that… thing, but because of what lay deep within its darkness: a choir of corpses, some still rotting, others just bones, reached out and dragged him inwards, towards the depths of their putrid land. There must’ve been about a hundred or so corpses lying within. “ Seek the old lady, seek the old lady… ”, they chanted together in a broken synchronisation. He was too exhausted to fight back, and conceded to let them puppet with him to their expense. At least until he made sure in the mangled and fused corpses truly resembled the pillaring the skull above...

 

 

He woke, expecting the stillness of the empty void. Instead, he found himself stricken by a blinding light drawing out a grimace of discomfort. He soothed his stinging eyes shut, only opening once the dryness had subsided.

The euphoria that followed suit was enough to release a guttural laugh from his throat, the burning having ceased throughout his throat and organs.

He could see.

He hungrily drunk in the world before him; in the shapes, colours, and so much. Suddenly, his previous wretchedness didn’t seem too, although he remained aware that the happiness he was feeling, although temporary, suppressed in great measure any negative thought from his head. He kept on laughing, his mirth rumbling in the closed space where they had chained him.

Eventually, his laughter lowered until it became giggles. None of his captors were present or even remotely close by, judging by how terribly silent everything was. He decided now to be a good time to minutely inspect the place.

He was in a house, but not in any house; this one was a simple room facing a single door and various windows on the side walls. The space being small enough to barely fit six people within. There was half the roof having crumbled down long ago, a good portion of the floor covered in debris. The scent of the wood with which the structure had been built was musty and rotten, hinting at its construction from possibly a century ago. Many of the windows were broken allowing some of the outer wind inside, but the lit candle flickering from a desk beside one of the window frames, gave light to the whole structure, prevailing in the chill of the nocturnal wind.

To him, this place could have been considered a cosy, if it weren’t for the horrid stench permeating the air. He lowered his gaze to focus on the feast upon the floor: corpses, stacked in a pile. Some animals, but mostly those of humans, fed the flies and the crows that were quietly pecking at the rotting meat. His sense of smell had indicated they must’ve been lying there for about a week, and the deduction couldn’t be far from the truth. Some of the bodies even looked as if they had been towed in merely hours ago. Then, there were those whose fate had been the same as his; like dead boars, human corpses were hanging from the portion of the ceiling that was still intact, having not collapsed the roof yet, unlike the beams currently letting in the frigid air. He pulled at the chains around his wrists in a sad attempt to break free, being awarded with only the wood around the girder creak dangerously.

He wondered whether the corpse pile had been the product of a bloodthirsty ritual; had these bodies been abandoned there once, still alive? Only to be left hanging up like pig viscera, until dehydration and famine would take over and dry them up like sausages? Who would use such a place —certainly a warehouse— as catering for the birds? There was the undeniable truth that the stench could lure in wolves and foxes, and should they find him inside, they wouldn’t hesitate for their fangs to meet his flesh.

Startling him, something poked at one of his hands. Looking up, he saw a single crow above the porch, holding the chains that kept him bound. He whistled to shoo it away, only for the bird to start nibbling at the skin of his hand. Nausea crept up his throat, him knowing very well the crow was trying to rip his flesh off. He closed his eyes, maybe hoping it was all a mere bad dream; maybe he had ended up in a never ending cycle of nightmares and the real world was nothing like the horrors he had faced since he had been “rescued” by those freaks.

What were they, by the way? What did they want from him?

And if the crow was actually feasting upon him with its sharp beak, why couldn’t he feel pain at all?

He looked up again, watching the crow nipping the skin around his wrist rather awkwardly, but there was something bizarre about its technique.

He realized, rather stunned, how one of the chains that held him up by the wrists was cracking open.

It was obvious the bird was inexperienced, but as soon as its huge beak targeted actual skin, it quickly changed the direction of its “death blows”.

The crow didn’t have any interest to feed on him, and he found this fact almost made him laugh again.

A second crow flapped its wings, landing above the porch next by, performing the same act onto his other wrist. In a matter of seconds, the chains pried open and he suddenly found the corpses breaking his fall.

After making a mental note to thank his captors for the kindness of having prepared a nice “mattress” for him, he wiped his hands on his breeches, feeling sick to the core, but determined to escape this place at all costs.

He rose to his feet, noticing how the ribs that had been broken by the Thomas guy no longer hurt and seemed to be intact. His bones didn’t crunch, nor did he find blood pouring from his nose, having been battered earlier. It all seemed too odd to be true. He walked parsimoniously —wary of another individual stationed outside—, towards the door. He found himself stumbling over debris of the ground, startling the crows and interrupting their feeding.

He faltered into an even deadlier fall in the presence of spikes and jagged glass at his feet. For a moment, he spotted his reflection within a shard of broken glass he had narrowly avoided being impaled upon. Tentatively he lifted the piece, and what he was faced with made his blood run cold.

In front of him there was a corpse, like the many who remained in there as animal bait; with the exception of this corpse actually being alive and belonging to him , though it had two empty eye holes that, for some reason, still managed to see.

The grim reflection brought his thoughts back to the pale face of Death; but the tattoo of a lion that jutted out from under the torn upper fabric of his shirt did more than enough to distract him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proof read by ShinigamiB. Thank you!


End file.
